How to show hidden files and folder in Ubuntu

Background

Some files are folders are hidden in Ubuntu. These are the ones that start with a "." in the beginning. Eg -

• ~/.bashrc
• ~/.vimrc etc

In this post, I will show you how you can make these files visible.

How to hide files and folder in Ubuntu?

The Files file manager gives you the ability to hide and unhide files at your discretion. When a file is hidden, it is not displayed by the file manager, but it is still there in its folder.

To hide a file, rename it with a "." at the beginning of its name. For example, to hide a file named example.txt, you should rename it to .example.txt.

You can hide folders in the same way that you can hide files. Hide a folder by placing a "." at the beginning of the folder’s name.

How to show hidden files and folder in Ubuntu CLI

To see the hidden files in the command line interface (CLI) you can just use -

• ls -la

To not see the hidden files you can just use -

• ls -l

 How to show hidden files and folder in Ubuntu Files explorer

To hidden files in the Files explorer, you can go to -

• View -> Show hidden files

or you can simply press

• Ctrl + H 

You can use the same shortcut or select the same setting again to toggle between showing and hiding hidden files in your Files explorer.

To make this permanent you can go to -

• Edit -> Preferences

and turn on the setting to show hidden files.

Related Links

• Hide a file